Horse Stall Bedding Options

The most common horse stall bedding materials are straw and shavings.

Horse stall bedding options.

For example concrete may meet most of your stall flooring criteria but more bedding or solid rubber mats will be needed to protect the horse s legs. I ve even heard of people using m 10 or stone dust. Although a bit pricey they make stall cleaning much easier and can be hosed off periodically. You can find this at your local hardware or garden store and a little bit goes a long way so you only need to buy a few bags.

Horse stall bedding options oct. Rubber stall mats provide an easily cleanable base for your chosen bedding material s. 14 2018 09 37 am. Probably the most popular products used for horse bedding are wood products such as wood shavings wood pellets wood chips and sawdust though there are many other products available that are also used for bedding horse stalls.

Open grille is a good option for most horses as it affords greater visibility out of the stall. Stall doors can be open grille or partial solid. Straw is used to form a sort of mat or barrier between manure and urine which settles to the bottom of the stall. Table 1 summarizes the attributes of common flooring materials that will be described in more detail.

It is absorbent in the stall and virtually dust free. Typically made of fir alder or pine the super absorbent bedding expands when exposed to moisture. I was wondering if anyone knows of different bedding options that last longer than your traditional wood shavings. Wheat and oat straw are most commonly used.

Stall doors can also be provided with an opening for the horse to stick his head out. While sawdust and shavings are the most popular wood bedding products pellets are also an option says jenifer nadeau phd an equine extension specialist at the university of connecticut who states that for a while in her area some horse owners were using wood pellets and liked them because they are very absorbent but now they are much more ex pensive since they have become popular for heating homes in pellet stoves. You need to bed deeply with straw to attain this mat effect perhaps this is where the tradition of putting lots of bedding in a horse s stall came from. I ve heard of some people using wood pellets but that seems expensive and uncomfortable for the horse.

Peat moss is an option that is easily available and horses seem to like it a lot because it gives them that soft bedding to lie down on. Depending on what s available in your area there may be other options you can consider.